Worst Cases: Terror and Catastrophe in the Popular Imagination

Worst Cases: Terror and Catastrophe in the Popular Imagination
ISBN-10
0226108597
ISBN-13
9780226108599
Category
Political Science
Pages
226
Language
English
Published
2006
Publisher
University of Chicago Press
Author
Lee Clarke

Description

The author surveys the full range of possible catastrophes that animate and dominate the popular imagination, from toxic spills and terrorism to plane crashes and pandemics. Along the way, he explores how the ubiquity of worst cases in everyday life has rendered them ordinary and mundane: very real threats like a killer flu or an American Hiroshima have become so common that they have lost their ability to shock us. Fear and dread, Clarke argues, are often completely sensible: when the public has more substantial information and more credible warnings it will take worst cases as seriously as it should.

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